I don’t think that’s it at all. She’s reacting to the sight of Jennifer’s man kissing some emo dude I’m not sure she knows. Odds are she’s going to go tell Jennifer her boyfriend is cheating on her, or she’s going to try to use it against Jennifer as a power play somehow. I’m just not entirely sure how.
I know it would be speaking too soon, but we hope that this will be a bitter pill of reality for Jennifer and she will finally open her eyes, the truth is that it will be painful.
Throwatron
I think it’s actually less than that. I think it’s more “huh, well, at least if I ever need something I can use, there’s this.” Raidah doesn’t love drama, she loves success, and cohesion within a group that she controls. If nobody is being difficult for her to control, there’s no use for her to waste her ammo weakening the bonds in her social circle, because she sees the strength of her social circle as an asset…as long as she can maintain complete dominance over it.
Smart manipulators exist, and the very thing that’s most dangerous about them, is they don’t cause you as many consistent problems as the average ones…until one day, they outright ruin your life, because it was slightly to their benefit, or even just their convenience.
I could see Radiah casually asking Jennifer about assets whereabouts to she how she responds, Jennifer responds like she like did with Sal about how she expects Asher to come back to her after he’s improved himself for her while Radiah fake nicely mentions seeing him with someone else.
Damn You Otto Korrekt! The ones I really hate are when Otto changes a word after you proof your post and hit >Enter<. And the homophone completely changes the meaning of your post.
Raidah when she tries to talk about Asher: “Oops. Damn autocorrect.”
Walky, probably: “You were talking out loud.”
Jennifer: “Freudian slips are just autocorrect errors of the mind.”
Don Grandpa: “Did someone say something about my asset? Asher. Damnit.”
Masumi
… What if she sees this as him improving himself?
Needfuldoer
It’s not a game of psychological warfare if you just outright ask about the situation.
So what’s the chance that she does tell Jen, Jen finally gets what she seems to want, a boyfriend who isn’t treating her nicely, and this rekindles her wanting Asher, she throws herself at him, he breaks up with Ethan, and Ethan enters the next floor deeper down on the depression express?
Holly
I think Ethan might flame the drama in this scenario, and if he’s more depressed while he does it, that’s apparently just going to be even more irresistable to Asher.
The ultimate question for me is a longer term one. If Ethan eventually begins to heal and get happier, will Asher look at Jennifer, who is likely to deteriorate, and get tempted.
Needfuldoer
I hope Ethan finally stands up for himself, instead of letting all the other characters’ negativity just happen to him again.
He deserves the catharsis after beating himself up for so long.
Miri
I don’t think Asher necessarily wants an emo boy, or depressed project to fix (I read a horrifying Reddit “best of” the other day where a girl lost her sister in a tragic accident, met a seemingly stand-up guy in the aftermath… Only, he was attracted to “broken with grief”-her and when, after a few years, she’d got back to being a mostly happy person who didn’t just drag herself through each day best she could understand the weight of her loss – he tried to break her emotionally again so she’d be hot to him again. It didn’t work, thankfully, but… https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/k28bhb/my_so_27m_of_1_year_destroyed_a_sentimental_item/ – Asher doesn’t give out those vibes!).
I think Ethan is hot, and the fact that he’s depressed means that Asher can help him be a better person which appeals to his want for growth, but that he’d be happy being part of Ethan’s journey to happy, and would be just as cute and adoring watching a happy Ethan fan out over Transformers…
I was VERY cautious about Asher, and I don’t know HOW compartmentalised everything gets with him, but I would like to think he’s genuinely grown since he set Sal up, and doing everything he can to distance himself from his mob ties without getting himself or any loved ones killed.
HEY-LO maybe that’s what the countdown since the last kidnapping is foreshadowing..? Ethan’s gonna be kidnapped again by heavies looking to get Asher back doing his Gramp’s bidding…
Ruth might get to punch an old man in the face for being insanely controlling… That’d be kinda nice for her if it doesn’t have follow up consequences!
Holly
I really hope you’re right, but they are young and this is dumbing of age, so they gotta survive Asher’s weakness for fixing it, Jennifer, and all else for them to reach that healthy point intact.
Aslan
I don’t really see Asher ditching Ethan for Jen in the aftermath. I think the consequences will be far more destructive for Jennifer
zee
Asher seems really not into her bullshit so, doubt
It depends entirely on who’s the better social property to be attached too.
Asher’s a longer time friend, AND he’s got connections.
Billie’s just an Ex cheerleader with a tangential tie to the dean, but not one that’s stable or useful.
She’ll drop Billie in a heartbeat.
Aslan
You forget about Jen’s wealthy real estate mogul dad. Granted, I don’t think Raidah’s more than a couple heartbeats away from kicking her to the curb, but the tangential connection to the dean isn’t why she brought Jen into the friend group
Raidah is a ruthless, but also arrogant, social climber. She’s made it clear that she truly despises people who are silly, nerdy, and/or unabashedly passionate about ‘weird’ things, but she’s willing to at least hide her scorn in order to make use of any really valuable social connections they have.
Ethan is ridiculously nerdy, antisocial, unambitious, and just generally embarrassing in almost every way that Raidah cares about. However, he is also EXTREMELY well connected, simply by way of having slept with half of Indiana University’s queer male population.
Oh, how I HOPE Raidah is going to try and make “friends” with Ethan. How the sparks would fly…
If it turns out that Ethan is finally the one to catch Raidah out on her BS publically in a way that finally has Consequences for her, that would be so, so, sweet.
I know the sound effect is supposed to be an evil snake rattle or something similar, but I like to imagine Aku has a team of robots with maracas or those tiny colorful eggs filled with sand following him around for dramatic effect.
I’m actually going to laugh if Raidah actually tries to be a good friend here, like she sees her friend’s boyfriend (as far as she knows at least) kissing on someone else and dutifully tells Jennifer…
Only for Jennifer to start frothing at the mouth with glee that FINALLY there’s some INTERESTING TOXICITY IN THEIR FAILING RELATIONSHIP and now she’s 100% invested in Asher once again, to Raidah’s concern.
Raidah: Your boyfriend’s cheating on you with another guy. I don’t mean to cause any drama but–
Jennifer: Jokes on you, I’m into that shit. The ‘shit’ in this case being drama, not the two guys kissing.
Oh yes I can feel it, I don’t know how but she’s going to try to handle this and it’s going to blow up in her face. She’s trying to assimilate people from Joyce & Sarah’s friend group but will have no clue how to manage herself around the more problematic baggage they have.
Oh, Jennifer would 100% try to “win back” Asher just because he’s actually getting involved with someone else. And after pushing him around so much, I don’t think he’d want to go back to her.
Asher doesn’t appear to be a bad guy, from the surface he seems a good, if somewhat damaged, hotty with a dark and mysterious past, who bested his dark side and the in-laws you will presumably never ever have to meet: a real catch!
The truth is more … complex, but Asher hides it well. Enough that the peaks others get at his darker side can be dismissed as simply fading echoes of his family upbringing.
It now occurs to me you may have meant, Asher has a thing for “I can fix them” cases. In that case you appear to be correct – going from Billy to Ethan is a real out the frying pan into the fire deal. Fortunately, it looks like Asher just maybe made out of monoammonium phosphate.
I work with fire extinguishers, and I am delighted that you chose that specific chemical
Mark
I don’t work with fire extinguishers, and it was a tasty puzzle.
elfroyalty
I did mean the latter, yeah! Asher has a thing for people who have obvious issues. I’m excited to see his relationship with Ethan play out, I missed Ethan a lot, and I have been READY for Jennifer’s reality check and for this friend group to implode since it was first introduced. <3
That’s what he thinks, but Jennifer just put their relationship in some passive-aggressive mean-girl holding pattern to convince him to change. For some reason.
146 thoughts on “Miserable”
Doctor_Who
Raidah be like…
Doopyboop
I love that you already had this image ready
Doctor_Who
I actually thought of it at 12:03 and had to sprint to Photoshop. Only time I’ve ever been grateful that the server clock is borked.
Doopyboop
Nice! Even better!
NGPZ
A-rank speed, Doctor. ^^
Thag Simmons
Damn, nice work.
Needfuldoer
Some of the best meme edits are made in haste.
stePH
We all know how you pulled it off, TIME LORD.
Proxiehunter
I don’t think that’s it at all. She’s reacting to the sight of Jennifer’s man kissing some emo dude I’m not sure she knows. Odds are she’s going to go tell Jennifer her boyfriend is cheating on her, or she’s going to try to use it against Jennifer as a power play somehow. I’m just not entirely sure how.
Vanessa
I’m sure she’s about the cause some harmful drama and hope to benefit in some way.
Coatl
I know it would be speaking too soon, but we hope that this will be a bitter pill of reality for Jennifer and she will finally open her eyes, the truth is that it will be painful.
Throwatron
I think it’s actually less than that. I think it’s more “huh, well, at least if I ever need something I can use, there’s this.” Raidah doesn’t love drama, she loves success, and cohesion within a group that she controls. If nobody is being difficult for her to control, there’s no use for her to waste her ammo weakening the bonds in her social circle, because she sees the strength of her social circle as an asset…as long as she can maintain complete dominance over it.
Smart manipulators exist, and the very thing that’s most dangerous about them, is they don’t cause you as many consistent problems as the average ones…until one day, they outright ruin your life, because it was slightly to their benefit, or even just their convenience.
Comic.phile
So well put
Archieve
I could see Radiah casually asking Jennifer about assets whereabouts to she how she responds, Jennifer responds like she like did with Sal about how she expects Asher to come back to her after he’s improved himself for her while Radiah fake nicely mentions seeing him with someone else.
Archieve
*Ashers whereabouts
Opus the Poet
Damn You Otto Korrekt! The ones I really hate are when Otto changes a word after you proof your post and hit >Enter<. And the homophone completely changes the meaning of your post.
Amelie Wikström
Raidah when she tries to talk about Asher: “Oops. Damn autocorrect.”
Walky, probably: “You were talking out loud.”
Jennifer: “Freudian slips are just autocorrect errors of the mind.”
Don Grandpa: “Did someone say something about my asset? Asher. Damnit.”
Masumi
… What if she sees this as him improving himself?
Needfuldoer
It’s not a game of psychological warfare if you just outright ask about the situation.
Sav
Didn’t she date Ethan’s roommate (Jacob)? Am I getting all the roomie situations confused?
cbwroses
Yes, she dated Jacob until his feelings for Joyce made him end it (though he also chose not to date Joyce).
Jamie
Yeah, there’s a fleeting chance she recognizes Ethan.
Aviator
So what’s the chance that she does tell Jen, Jen finally gets what she seems to want, a boyfriend who isn’t treating her nicely, and this rekindles her wanting Asher, she throws herself at him, he breaks up with Ethan, and Ethan enters the next floor deeper down on the depression express?
Holly
I think Ethan might flame the drama in this scenario, and if he’s more depressed while he does it, that’s apparently just going to be even more irresistable to Asher.
The ultimate question for me is a longer term one. If Ethan eventually begins to heal and get happier, will Asher look at Jennifer, who is likely to deteriorate, and get tempted.
Needfuldoer
I hope Ethan finally stands up for himself, instead of letting all the other characters’ negativity just happen to him again.
He deserves the catharsis after beating himself up for so long.
Miri
I don’t think Asher necessarily wants an emo boy, or depressed project to fix (I read a horrifying Reddit “best of” the other day where a girl lost her sister in a tragic accident, met a seemingly stand-up guy in the aftermath… Only, he was attracted to “broken with grief”-her and when, after a few years, she’d got back to being a mostly happy person who didn’t just drag herself through each day best she could understand the weight of her loss – he tried to break her emotionally again so she’d be hot to him again. It didn’t work, thankfully, but… https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/k28bhb/my_so_27m_of_1_year_destroyed_a_sentimental_item/ – Asher doesn’t give out those vibes!).
I think Ethan is hot, and the fact that he’s depressed means that Asher can help him be a better person which appeals to his want for growth, but that he’d be happy being part of Ethan’s journey to happy, and would be just as cute and adoring watching a happy Ethan fan out over Transformers…
I was VERY cautious about Asher, and I don’t know HOW compartmentalised everything gets with him, but I would like to think he’s genuinely grown since he set Sal up, and doing everything he can to distance himself from his mob ties without getting himself or any loved ones killed.
HEY-LO maybe that’s what the countdown since the last kidnapping is foreshadowing..? Ethan’s gonna be kidnapped again by heavies looking to get Asher back doing his Gramp’s bidding…
Ruth might get to punch an old man in the face for being insanely controlling… That’d be kinda nice for her if it doesn’t have follow up consequences!
Holly
I really hope you’re right, but they are young and this is dumbing of age, so they gotta survive Asher’s weakness for fixing it, Jennifer, and all else for them to reach that healthy point intact.
Aslan
I don’t really see Asher ditching Ethan for Jen in the aftermath. I think the consequences will be far more destructive for Jennifer
zee
Asher seems really not into her bullshit so, doubt
GholaHalleck
It depends entirely on who’s the better social property to be attached too.
Asher’s a longer time friend, AND he’s got connections.
Billie’s just an Ex cheerleader with a tangential tie to the dean, but not one that’s stable or useful.
She’ll drop Billie in a heartbeat.
Aslan
You forget about Jen’s wealthy real estate mogul dad. Granted, I don’t think Raidah’s more than a couple heartbeats away from kicking her to the curb, but the tangential connection to the dean isn’t why she brought Jen into the friend group
PedanticJerkass
Whatever she does, it’s almost certain to end badly for everyone involved.
Mturtle7
Oh, this would be HILARIOUS.
Raidah is a ruthless, but also arrogant, social climber. She’s made it clear that she truly despises people who are silly, nerdy, and/or unabashedly passionate about ‘weird’ things, but she’s willing to at least hide her scorn in order to make use of any really valuable social connections they have.
Ethan is ridiculously nerdy, antisocial, unambitious, and just generally embarrassing in almost every way that Raidah cares about. However, he is also EXTREMELY well connected, simply by way of having slept with half of Indiana University’s queer male population.
Oh, how I HOPE Raidah is going to try and make “friends” with Ethan. How the sparks would fly…
Holly
If it turns out that Ethan is finally the one to catch Raidah out on her BS publically in a way that finally has Consequences for her, that would be so, so, sweet.
Animedingo
Neat
Jamie
My popcorn is prepared.
JA
Triple Slipshine moment?
Nymph
I would actually subscribe to slipshine for this one (and read the others while I’m there, why not?)
Stephen Bierce
They say Misery…loves company
So we’ll start a company…and make Misery
NGPZ
oh no.
True Survivor
I know the sound effect is supposed to be an evil snake rattle or something similar, but I like to imagine Aku has a team of robots with maracas or those tiny colorful eggs filled with sand following him around for dramatic effect.
Doopyboop
I’m actually going to laugh if Raidah actually tries to be a good friend here, like she sees her friend’s boyfriend (as far as she knows at least) kissing on someone else and dutifully tells Jennifer…
Only for Jennifer to start frothing at the mouth with glee that FINALLY there’s some INTERESTING TOXICITY IN THEIR FAILING RELATIONSHIP and now she’s 100% invested in Asher once again, to Raidah’s concern.
Raidah: Your boyfriend’s cheating on you with another guy. I don’t mean to cause any drama but–
Jennifer: Jokes on you, I’m into that shit. The ‘shit’ in this case being drama, not the two guys kissing.
Coatl
It will be crazy worth seeing.
Newlland(Henryvolt)
Oh yes I can feel it, I don’t know how but she’s going to try to handle this and it’s going to blow up in her face. She’s trying to assimilate people from Joyce & Sarah’s friend group but will have no clue how to manage herself around the more problematic baggage they have.
Samniel
Oh, Jennifer would 100% try to “win back” Asher just because he’s actually getting involved with someone else. And after pushing him around so much, I don’t think he’d want to go back to her.
Aslan
I absolutely see this being the catalyst for Raidah kicking Jen out of the group. Either way it’s about to be messy
Nedlum
Her thoughts on Andrew Garfield’s two hunky bisexual friends says she might into that shit, as well.
Nedlum
Stupid HTML: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/people/
elfroyalty
asher is the ultimate in “i can fix them” i think.
True Survivor
Asher doesn’t appear to be a bad guy, from the surface he seems a good, if somewhat damaged, hotty with a dark and mysterious past, who bested his dark side and the in-laws you will presumably never ever have to meet: a real catch!
The truth is more … complex, but Asher hides it well. Enough that the peaks others get at his darker side can be dismissed as simply fading echoes of his family upbringing.
True Survivor
It now occurs to me you may have meant, Asher has a thing for “I can fix them” cases. In that case you appear to be correct – going from Billy to Ethan is a real out the frying pan into the fire deal. Fortunately, it looks like Asher just maybe made out of monoammonium phosphate.
Nono
Eh Ethan is a good guy, he’s just in mourning.
Jennifer has a whole host of issues.
Nathan
I work with fire extinguishers, and I am delighted that you chose that specific chemical
Mark
I don’t work with fire extinguishers, and it was a tasty puzzle.
elfroyalty
I did mean the latter, yeah! Asher has a thing for people who have obvious issues. I’m excited to see his relationship with Ethan play out, I missed Ethan a lot, and I have been READY for Jennifer’s reality check and for this friend group to implode since it was first introduced. <3
Dare
I dunno, this looks like bad guy behaviour to me.
CrazyJ
I’d still say he’s more of an antihero.
Taffy
The dastardly fiend, receiving a text message.
HueSatLight
The rush order on the “get well soon” cake he ordered was done.
AlexaSpuds
why do I get the feeling she’s gonna use this as blackmail on one or both of these guys
Coatl
We are talking about Raidah, and to be honest it would not be strange if that were to happen.
JessWitt
She’d probably use this against Jennifer for some reason.
Archieve
She’ll be quickly disappointed it she tries, Asher isn’t hiding anything, he doesn’t have a girlfriend anymore to cheat on.
Thag Simmons
Well, he’s not hiding anything about this relationship.
Needfuldoer
That’s what he thinks, but Jennifer just put their relationship in some passive-aggressive mean-girl holding pattern to convince him to change. For some reason.
High drama people are exhausting.
Adam Black
let her TRY
She can ask the last guy’s remains how that worked out.
Clif
Mm.
Taffy
I’m pretty sure Ethan never killed anybody.
tunasammich
How though? They’re being openly affectionate, I don’t think they care if people know
DarkoNeko
oh my oh my
Coatl
Ugh….Raidah, well we’ll see how “good a friend” you really are.
RassilonTDavros
Oh this bodes poorly.
Pocky